In this episode of The World Unpacked , host Isaac Kardon is joined by Alexander (Sasha) Gabuev, Director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin and one of the world’s leading experts on Russia-China relations. Together, they unpack the growing geopolitical competition in the Arctic—a region increasingly shaped by strategic cooperation between Russia and China, and generally neglected or misunderstood by U.S. policymakers. This conversation dives deep into the overlooked maritime theate...
Aug 06, 2025•42 min•Ep. 252
Subsea cables carry 95% of the world’s data—but remain largely invisible in global policy debates. In this episode, Isaac Kardon is joined by Carnegie experts Jane Munga and Sophia Besch to unpack the geopolitics, economics, and security risks surrounding undersea data infrastructure. From Africa’s digital development to Europe’s hybrid warfare concerns, they explore who owns these cables, why they matter, and how governments can respond to emerging infrastructure threats. Notes: Sophia Besch an...
Jul 10, 2025•40 min•Ep. 250
How should we understand China’s unique variety of party-state capitalism? In this episode of The World Unpacked, Isaac Kardon sits down with Dr. Meg Rithmire, a renowned scholar of political economy in China and the James E. Robison Professor at Harvard Business School, to discuss how capitalism functions in a party-state that tries to maintain “rule by market” without ceding too much control to private capital. Their discussion is based on Dr. Rithmire’s chapter in a new volume released from C...
Jun 19, 2025•51 min•Ep. 249
The world is entering a new nuclear age—one defined by proliferating arsenals, eroding arms control, and rising geopolitical tensions. In this episode, Isaac Kardon sits down with international security expert and Stanton Senior Fellow Ankit Panda to discuss the return of nuclear weapons to the center of global strategy. As Russia issues nuclear threats, China and North Korea expand their capabilities, and emerging technologies like AI reshape the battlefield, the risks of confrontation are grow...
Jun 09, 2025•55 min•Ep. 248
As U.S.-China tensions deepen, Beijing is carving out a new role for itself—not just as an economic powerhouse, but as a global security player. What does China’s vision of “comprehensive national security” mean for countries caught in the middle of great-power competition? And how are smaller states navigating the shifting landscape of global security partnerships? In this episode, Isaac Kardon sits down with Sheena Chestnut Greitens to explore how China is providing security assistance to gove...
May 22, 2025•53 min•Ep. 246
In this episode of The World Unpacked, Isaac B. Kardon sits down with Ashley J. Tellis, Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs and Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Andrew Yeo, Senior Fellow and the SK-Korea Foundation Chair at the Brookings Institution. They explore how the role of overseas bases has changed over time and how the U.S., China, and Russia—among other countries—use them to project power today. Despite advances in technology and long-range weapons, base...
May 08, 2025•51 min•Ep. 245
In this episode of The World Unpacked, Isaac Kardon is joined by Darcie Draudt-Véjares to explore how the shipbuilding industry is reshaping global security and industrial policy. They discuss Washington's faltering commercial shipbuilding sector, China's rise through state-led integration, and South Korea and Japan’s dominance in high-tech ship production. Can the U.S. rebuild its maritime power—and what lessons can it learn from its global allies?
Apr 25, 2025•40 min•Ep. 244
In President Donald Trump’s second term, Latin America has taken center stage in U.S. foreign policy—but not without controversy. From aggressive deportation flights to economic coercion and even veiled threats of military action, the Trump administration’s confrontational stance is straining relations across the region. In this episode, Oliver Stuenkel joins Sophia to unpack how these developments are reshaping regional politics and prompting Latin American leaders to reassess their relationshi...
Apr 10, 2025•46 min•Ep. 243
After over a year of devastating conflict, Israel and Hamas reached a three-phase ceasefire agreement in January 2025, brokered by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States. The deal allowed for significant increases in humanitarian aid deliveries, prisoner and hostage exchanges, and discussions for a potential permanent ceasefire. This episode was recorded on March 11, ten days after the scheduled completion of Phase 1. Since then, the ceasefire has remained in limbo—Israel is pushing to extend Phase...
Mar 27, 2025•35 min•Ep. 242
Nearly a week after the tense Oval Office meeting between President Trump and President Zelensky, and just days after the Trump administration’s abrupt decision to pause military aid and intelligence sharing with Ukraine, serious questions loom over America’s commitment to Kyiv’s security. At the same time, the White House appears to be exploring a thaw with Moscow—including potential sanctions relief with little in return. In this episode, Sophia Besch and Dara Massicot unpack the implications ...
Mar 07, 2025•34 min•Ep. 241
What's going on in the Korean Peninsula following the impeachment of South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol? How will evolving politics shape Seoul's future relations with North Korea? How will domestic political shifts in the U.S. shape foreign policy and great power relations among Washington, Beijing, Seoul, and Pyongyang? Asia Program Fellow Darcie Draudt-Véjares and Senior Fellow Chung Min Lee discuss these questions and more in this special feature episode of The World Unpacked.
Feb 27, 2025•44 min•Ep. 240
Rising sea levels and climate-driven flooding are reshaping the global economy, with major implications for the U.S. housing market and the global economy. As millions of homes face increased risk, mortgage defaults could surge, home values may plummet, and financial instability could spread worldwide. Governments will soon need large-scale strategies to relocate coastal populations and manage mounting disaster relief costs. In this episode, we explore how climate change threatens financial stab...
Feb 13, 2025•41 min•Ep. 239
China’s new AI model, DeepSeek, has rattled markets and raised questions about the global AI race. Meanwhile, just before leaving office, the Biden administration introduced the Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion—an ambitious new rule that could reshape how—and who—gets access to advanced AI technologies from the U.S. It is designed to regulate AI exports, strengthen partnerships with allies, and restrict adversaries’ access to advanced AI chips and models. But with the Trump admini...
Jan 30, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 238
The Biden administration contends it has left the United States in a better geopolitical position than when it entered office four years ago. In a year-end foreign policy review from Carnegie’s American Statecraft Program, Director Chris Chivvis and Senior Fellow Stephen Wertheim critique Biden's foreign policy legacy and discuss what Trump might do next. Why has it been so difficult for Biden to restrain Israel and succeed in Ukraine? What might a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire deal look like? How ca...
Jan 17, 2025•52 min•Ep. 237
As we enter this new year of 2025, Sophia Besch sits down with President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Tino Cuéllar. They take a step back at the year and look at the big themes and trends that are likely going to determine and underlie the discussions of the year ahead, from technology to political economy, democratic governance, and global power dynamics. Notes: Ramachandra Guha, India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy, Ecco, 2008. James C. Scott, S...
Jan 16, 2025•42 min•Ep. 236
Over the past decade, China has emerged as a powerhouse here, producing the majority of key clean energy technologies. What does this mean for the United States, and for the race towards net zero emissions? In this episode, Sophia Besch and Fellow Milo McBride talk about the strategies the U.S. could deploy to better compete in the clean energy revolution. They unpack how innovative technologies could not only help close the clean energy gap with China but also redefine America’s role in the glo...
Jan 06, 2025•39 min•Ep. 235
What can the elections of 2024 tell us about the state of democracy worldwide? This year has seen a flurry of elections across democracies, sparking debate among analysts about their implications for global democratic health. As the year draws to a close, Sophia sits down with Thomas Carothers, Director of the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at Carnegie and leading expert on democracy and international politics. Their conversation unpacks key theories like the "bonfire of incumbents,...
Dec 19, 2024•33 min•Ep. 234
Our modern global trading system is broken. How can we fix it? We seem to have moved beyond the free trade consensus of the globalization era. Few politicians today still publicly support the assumption that trade, unrestricted by national borders, makes everyone more prosperous. Under President Trump, the United States has wielded tariffs and industrial policy to reshape the international trade order to better serve American interests, and the Biden administration has upheld and doubled down on...
Dec 05, 2024•27 min•Ep. 233
With Donald Trump returning to the White House, the future of the transatlantic alliance hangs in the balance. Europe Inside Out's new host Rym Momtaz is joined by Sophia Besch and Christopher Shell to unpack the reasons behind his victory and its implications for EU-U.S. relations. Original episode page on Europe Inside Out here.
Nov 21, 2024•38 min•Ep. 232
What if the future of global power dynamics and, the question of winners and losers in the US-China competition could hinge on one body of water – the Indian Ocean? As geopolitical tensions rise and great powers vie for influence in the Indo-Pacific, the Indian Ocean is emerging as an increasingly critical theater of international relations. What is clear is that U.S.-China tensions are heightening the strategic importance of maritime security. How are these dynamics changing the geopolitical en...
Nov 07, 2024•29 min•Ep. 231
Why is meaningful change in U.S. foreign policy is so difficult to achieve? This question is especially relevant with the U.S. presidential election just weeks away now, and analysts and policy makers all over the world are discussing how a Trump or Harris presidency might shift American foreign policy in the years to come. But how likely is it that we will see meaningful change at all? Historically, it has been incredibly challenging for presidential administrations to break away from entrenche...
Oct 24, 2024•50 min•Ep. 230
Following Sunday's controversial presidential election, Kais Saied has secured his second term in office. While this result was widely anticipated, it raises deeper questions about the trajectory of Tunisia's democracy. Tunisia was once seen as the shining success of the Arab Spring – a beacon of democratic hope. But now, like several of its neighbors, it finds itself grappling with rising authoritarianism, weakened institutions, and disillusioned voters. Today, we’re not just looking at Tunisia...
Oct 10, 2024•33 min•Ep. 229
In the fight against climate change, a controversial new idea is gaining traction: solar geoengineering. Solar geoengineering, or solar radiation modification, is an emerging technology that aims to reflect sunlight back into space to cool planet Earth. In a world that is struggling to bring about the behavioral and political changes needed to reduce climate change, an innovative tech approach might seem like an alluring silver bullet. But the reality is not so simple. In this episode, Sophia si...
Sep 26, 2024•32 min•Ep. 228
The Middle East and North Africa region is witnessing a fierce competition among the world’s current “great powers”—the U.S., Russia, and China. These three countries are all seeking to extend their influence in this region. But the ways they're engaging—with varying degrees of success—are as complex as the region itself. This week on the show, Sophia digs into the data with Amr Hamzawy, a senior fellow and the director of the Carnegie Middle East Program. Trade and foreign direct investment, ar...
Sep 12, 2024•46 min•Ep. 227
Just a few weeks ago, French President Emmanuel Macron took a risky political gamble. After the European Parliament elections revealed gains for the far-right party National Rally, Macron called a snap nationwide election three years earlier than required. Macron hoped to use this election to push back on the right-wing gains and restore power to the center. But others worried that Macron had become overconfident–perhaps even arrogant. They feared that instead of clarifying France’s support for ...
Jul 11, 2024•33 min•Ep. 226
NATO’s 75th anniversary summit is coming up in Washington DC next month. With the war in Ukraine ongoing, Kyiv has sought to join NATO for a while now. But the alliance has been reluctant to grant official membership, which led to a tense summit last year. So, this time around, the US government and its Allies have been working hard to identify summit deliverables beyond Ukraine’s NATO membership. Still, it’s hard to picture a summit where Ukraine’s future will not be the number one agenda item....
Jun 27, 2024•40 min•Ep. 225
Just a few days ago, over 300 million voters across 27 countries were called to vote in the European Parliament elections. These elections take place every five years, and sometimes people have a tendency to dismiss them as symbolic elections that don’t matter much in practice. But the lead-up to the vote this year has been particularly intense: as the war in Ukraine rages on, countries all across the continent face rising nationalist and nativist sentiment, and far-right parties expect to make ...
Jun 13, 2024•29 min•Ep. 224
On May 14, 2024, the Biden administration announced $18 billion dollars worth of tariffs on a range of Chinese imports from “strategic sectors," which include electric vehicles (EVs), batteries, critical minerals, steel and aluminum, semiconductors, solar cells, and medical products. This is the latest episode in Washington’s controversial trade war with Beijing, launched by Donald Trump in 2018 and continued under this administration. Jon Bateman , a senior fellow in Carnegie's Technology and I...
May 30, 2024•32 min•Ep. 223
As China ramps up its military capabilities and tensions persist in the Taiwan Strait, there are growing concerns about the risk of conflict that could involve the United States. But it’s not just Taiwan that could spark conflict. China’s increasingly assertive presence is felt everywhere in the South China Sea from the Philippines to Malaysia. How will these conflicts develop? What do we know about China’s maritime strategy, and what lessons can we draw from Beijing’s behavior in the South Chin...
May 16, 2024•38 min•Ep. 222
After months of gridlock, Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed the long-awaited foreign aid package into law, which includes $60.8 billion for Ukraine. With the war still ongoing, this comes at a critical point for the Ukrainians in fighting Russian forces. But after months of delay, how much has been lost in the waiting? What will be the effects on the battlefield? And how are Ukraine, Russia, and Ukraine's allies preparing for what is ahead? Dara Massicot , a senior fellow in Carnegi...
May 02, 2024•27 min•Ep. 221
